The Monthly Digest

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,630 ‘Playfair’

Difficulty rating: (5 / 10)

I know that some people really enjoy Playfair puzzles, but they leave me cold,  so when no clues are provided to the code word I have no qualms about using a code cracker such as Quinapalus to identify it. I found it hard to assign a difficulty rating to this puzzle – the clues were generally pretty straightforward, but the Playfair element adds a complexity which is likely to divide the opinions of solvers. For those who feel inclined to try cracking the code, I will repeat below some general hints that I have provided in the past, and underneath the notes on the clues I have included a further hint specific to this puzzle. Incidentally, the code word is usually also the word to be clued for the competition – when you find today’s word you will understand why Azed decided to select a different word for the comp!

The only real option with a Playfair puzzle is to solve the non-Playfair clues to get all of the checked letters in the Playfair solutions (or at the very least the pairs of letters which are both checked in the grid, but don’t forget that you can draw conclusions even from an incomplete quartet), work out the non-encoded answers to the Playfair clues, and then create quartets by relating the checked letter pairs from the encoded answers to the corresponding pairs in the non-coded solutions (eg solution = SOLVED, part completed light in grid = J?TPAG, LV encodes to TP and ED encodes to AG, while SO encodes to J?).

There are probably lots of ways to move forward from there, but I tend to look at the pairs of letters that (assuming the quartet represents a rectangle) are going to be in the same row (in my example L and T, V and P, E and A, D and G, S and J) and those that will be in the same column (in my example, L and P, V and T, E and G, D and A, O and J) and then link with other pairs (so if I find that L and P are in the same column and P and S are in the same column, I know that L, P and S are all in one column). And if I find that a group of letters (L, P and S, say) appear to be in both the same row and the same column? Then we are looking at a line and not a rectangle, so wherever any two of those letters appear as a pair on either side of an encoding, all four letters in that encoding are in the same row or column – so if L, P and S appear to be in the same row and the same column, and LP->IK, then L, P, I, K and S are all in the same row/column and I is (cyclically) to the right of or below L, K to the right of or below P. Oh yes, and Z is probably in the bottom right hand corner!

To which I will add a couple of points:

1. If a letter appears on both sides of an encoding, ie DR encodes to RI, that means that the letters (here D, R and I) appear consecutively in a specific sequence (cyclically) in the same line (could be either a row or a column) – for AB->BC the sequence is ABC (so in the example, DRI), for AB->CA the sequence is BAC.

2. If you can find all the letters in cyclic sequence within a column, eg SBLYU, remember that the letters which don’t appear in the code word are listed alphabetically at the end of the square, so it is likely that at least two, and potentially three, of the letters in the column will be part of this ‘remainder’; therefore they will occur in alphabetical sequence at the end of the column. And not only is Z likely to be in the bottom right-hand corner, but some of its near neighbours at the end of the alphabet will also be on the bottom row.

Across
1a Explosive artillery holds in reversing rupture (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for a powerful kind of explosive is followed by the usual two-letter representation of ‘artillery’ which contains a reversal of IN (‘holds in reversing’).

11a Bit of timber in dry measure thereof (5)
The first letter (‘bit of’) ‘timber’ is inserted into a poetic word meaning ‘dry’ to produce a measure of timber (ie ‘measure thereof’).

19a Primitive creatures? See one twinkling on a bee flying (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a two-letter word for [a] twinkling are followed by an anagram (‘flying’) of A BEE.

20a Lost lingo included in central tenet of Confucianism (5)
A two-letter word meaning ‘included’ is to be placed inside the term describing the way to be followed in Confucianism , certain principles of which are considered by some (in particular Benjamin Hoff in his 1982 book) to be personified by Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends.

23a Take heed about prime element of baby’s rearing (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘take heed’ or ‘be concerned’ is set about the first letter (‘prime element’) of ‘baby’, the result being a heraldic term.

27a Dad worked with regular features of comical mental state (8)
A three-part charade comprising elements of 2, 3 and 3 letters respectively.

30a Chap leading a lesson about one type of rock deformation (10)
A three-letter word for the sort of chap who might be cool is followed by A (from the clue) and a word for a lesson containing (‘about’) the Roman numeral for ‘one’.

32a Church in scattered arrangement (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for ‘church’ (of unspecified denomination) is put inside a heraldic term (like 23a taken directly from the French language) meaning ‘strewn or scattered over with small bearings,’

Down
1d Wee fish that is tailing pike, see (6)
The usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘that is’ follows a three-letter word for the bony pike or sea-pike (a shortened form of a seven-letter word wish -fish on the end) and the single-letter abbreviation used in texts for ‘see’.

2d Tumours mum’s taken in to treat misshapen one (10)
A two-letter word for ‘mum’ in the parent sense is ‘taken in[to]’ an anagram (‘misshapen’) of TO TREAT, the whole lot being followed by a single-letter word for ‘one’.

4d Monster that’s tucked into Asiatic bird, a kind of poultry (7)
The monster here is a three-letter sea-monster, and it’s ‘tucked into’ a bird which is renowned for its ability to imitate human speech (the spelling with an ‘i’ rather than a ‘y’).

7d Rib involved outlay for Adam, without restraint (5)
A four-letter word for ‘outlay’ is followed by ADAM from which a word meaning ‘restraint’ has been removed.

18d Second hearing to do with network surrounding queen (7)
A six-letter word meaning ‘relating to a network’ (in an anatomical sense) contains a single-letter abbreviation for ‘queen’.

19d Rules for jousting, boring, Earl penned with love (6)
A four-letter word for ‘boring’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘Earl’ inserted, this combination being followed by the usual single-character representation of ‘love’.

26d Composer cutting last slow movement (5)
My knowledge of classical music is, well, patchy, and I wasn’t familiar with Orlande de ******, apparently “a composer of the late Renaissance, and the chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school.” His last name has its final letter removed.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,629 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I felt that this puzzle was of at least average difficulty, though I could be persuaded that it was marginally tougher. I thought that the clues were of a good standard, although like last week nothing particularly stood out.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 30a, “Lentil meal a Levanter transported (9)”. A simple anagram clue, but there are two possibilities for the answer, a preparation of lentil and barley flour intended for invalids that was first given a name beginning with ER and then arbitrarily renamed with the first two letters being reversed, all during the nineteenth century. Is this a problem? Well, in general terms, setters should try to ensure that ambiguities are eliminated from clues by using wordplays which lead only to the intended answer. A common trap is the reversal clue where a single word is reversed to produce the solution – ‘Breaks twisted thong’ might be intended as a clue for PARTS, but it could equally well lead to STRAP. Here the solution is simply to change the word order, ‘Twisted thong breaks’ being unambiguous. The most important thing is that when there is ambiguity the solver must be able through the checked letters (as with today’s clue) to establish beyond doubt the intended entry – an ambiguity which can be resolved by checked letters is undesirable, but one which cannot thus be resolved is wholly unacceptable.

Across
1a Corporation displaying striking power restricting one (6)
The appearance of ‘corporation’ in a clue should alert you to the likelihood that it will refer not to a business but to a belly, often translating into ‘tum’ when part of the wordplay. Here it forms the definition of a word formed when a five-letter word for ‘striking power’ contains a single-letter word for ‘one’.

11a Scotch liquor king left off enjoying as of old (4)
I was initially puzzled by the wordplay here, specifically the use of ‘enjoyment’ rather than ‘enjoy’, since it seemed that we were to remove the abbreviation for ‘king’ in a chess context from a five-letter word which once meant ‘to enjoy’ but now only occurs with the sense of ‘to endure’. However, it is actually the letters KING which must be removed from the eight-letter verbal noun derived from the aforesaid verb (ie ‘enjoying as of old’) in order to produce the answer.

13a Bad news for apiaries left our bee damaged in nourishment (9)
An anagram (‘damaged’) of the usual abbreviation for ‘left’, OUR, and the letter represented by ‘bee’ is put inside a four-letter word for ‘nourishment’, the result being a hyphenated (4-5) bacterial disease which would indeed be bad news for apiaries.

15a Old umpires may end batting (or bowling) round start of shower (7)
Azed from time to time does things which would not go down well with modern crossword editors. Here he includes a second anagram indicator, ‘bowling’, which in terms of the wordplay is completely superfluous, an anagram (‘batting’) of MAY END containing (’round’) the first letter (‘start’) of ‘shower’ being entirely sufficient.

17a Sunday lunch? It may include greens (5)
You may need to refer to Chambers for possible meanings of ‘greens’ in order to parse this double definition clue.

18a Being a renegade always restricts job with bank (8)
A two-letter word for ‘always’ contains (‘restricts’) a four-letter word for a job and a two-letter word for a bank of sand or gravel usually associated with glacial deposits and barred crosswords.

26a Is stuffing rubbish with minimum of sage? (5)
The ‘rubbish’ in the wordplay will forever be associated in my mind with Gerald Ratner’s speech to the Insititute of Directors on 23 April 1991, an illustration of the rule that while the public may have an inkling that your products might not be of the highest quality, you really don’t want to publicly confirm their suspicions. It is followed by the first letter (‘minimum’) of ‘sage’.

28a Stole recipe forming new centre of lecture (7)
A seven-letter word for a lecture has its middle letter (‘centre’) replaced by the usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’.

34a Sort of hollow marriage retrograde? One’s sure trapped in it (6)
A reversal (‘retrograde’) of a three-letter word for ‘marriage’ has a three-letter informal word for ‘sure’ (or ‘indeed’) ‘trapped’ inside it. The solution is hyphenated (3-3).

Down
3d Crowns once placed on sovereign’s head? This shows admiration (6, 2 words)
The plural of a Shakespearean word for the top of the head (‘Crowns once’) is put on top of the first letter (‘head’) of ‘sovereign’ to produce a (2,4) phrase which is used (often ironically, according to Chambers) to express admiration.

4d Old gull making good after losing fish? (4)
Perhaps the trickiest clue in this puzzle, where the wordplay involves an eight-letter word meaning ‘making good’ or ‘patching up’ having the name of a fish from the cod family (and a setters’ favourite) removed. The solution is given by Chambers as ‘archaic’, hence the ‘Old’.

14d As to churning in stomach, not affected by the environment (9)
I learnt something here, having never (to the best of my recollection) come across the five-letter word indicated by ‘stomach’ being used with this meaning, the third stomach of a ruminant. Its many folds apparently resemble the pages of a (presumably large) book, and give rise to one of its other names, the manyplies. Interestingly, this meaning is not given by the OED, although it is shown by Wikipedia. What’s inside the word here is an anagram (‘churning’) of AS TO.

19d What makes one’s dog bark when old and saintly? (7)
This is one of those clues where Azed has come up with a rather involved wordplay in order to optimize the surface reading – the ‘What’ is effectively the solution, and the ‘makes’ equates to ‘is made from’. The wordplay proper consists of the five words in the middle, where “one’s dog” could equally well be “one’s cat” and the ‘bark when old’ indicates an old variant spelling of a word for ‘bark’ (ending with a ‘d’) which is now almost exclusively used to describe the peel or skin of fruits and vegetables.

21d Piston rising and falling – it limits erosion (6)
The same three-letter word for a piston appears reversed (‘rising’) and then in its normal form (‘falling’), the result being a seaside grass frequently used to counter erosion.

23d Cierge lit – to light one’s way up these? (6)
I suspect that the answer here may be the word for which Chambers offers the greatest number of variant spellings (12 including this one), but none of the others shares the same mix of letters, so unlike 30a there is no ambiguity. There are many anagram indicators which depend on the suggestion of inebriation, and ‘lit’ is one of them.

25d Game birds, number not appearing in transport (5)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] transport’ has the usual single-letter abbreviation of ‘number’ removed (‘not appearing’) to produce a term for a small flock of game birds.

27d Bacteriologist exchanging parts of entrails (5)
The first three letters of a word for certain entrails when prepared as food are exchanged with the last two, the result being the surname of a German bacteriologist who, rather like Dame Nellie Melba, had a dish named after him.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,628 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

A puzzle that featured what seemed to me an inordinate number of straightforward anagrams, in consequence of which I would rate the difficulty as significantly below average. I thought the clues were generally of a reasonable standard, although none particularly stood out.

Note that there is an enumeration error (in the online version, at least) in the clue for 30d, where the solution is four letters and not five.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 9d, “Bypass to avoid needing to be on time (5)”. This clue consists of eight words, but only the first three and the last play any active part in the cryptic reading, with ‘needing to be on’ offering no useful information to the solver. Although the word ‘on’ is technically superfluous, it is commonly used as a juxtaposition indicator, and is no less appropriate than words like ‘for’ or ‘in’ when used to link wordplay and definition. But what about ‘needing to be’? One of the core principles of Ximenean clueing is that a clue should consist of wordplay(s), definition(s), and nothing else – this rule is clearly subject to bending, or linking words would not be allowed, but modern thinking is that clues should be kept as concise as possible. On that basis, I think that most editors would be reluctant to use a clue like this as it stands, with something like ‘Bypass to avoid centre of Dunstable’ being preferred.

Across
4a Gold purchases – transactions included at least 200 centavos (9)
The chemical symbol for gold and a word for purchases as seen from the vendor’s perspective with the abbreviation for ‘transactions’ inserted (‘included’) lead to the plural of a former Argentinian currency unit which was equivalent to 100 centavos.

10a Chatter quietly with conductor (7)
The ‘conductor’ here is arguably Britain’s most famous living maestro, and surely the only one who can be confidently identified from just the rear view of his head.

13a Predecessor on the throne, English, branching out? (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘English’ has a word meaning ‘branching’ outside (‘out’), and the answer is a word seemingly only found in Tennyson’s Harold, but not indicated by Azed as being archaic, obsolete, or generally well past its prime. I wonder if Azed is following the lead of several UK supermarkets in removing ‘best before’ dates from a number of products.

15a Offshoot completely extracted from leek (5)
An eight-letter word for a leek has a synonym for ‘completely’ removed (‘extracted’) to produce the solution.

23a Mac’s cast for fish in Windermere? (6)
I knew neither of the words which feature in this double definition clue, although I was able to guess the single unchecked letter as it produced what sounded like a Scots word. I’ve probably heard of the fish (so called, apparently, because of the size of its scales), but if I’ve seen Keith Floyd or Rick Stein doing something with one I’ve long since put it from my mind.

25a Perth’s neat finish? In Perth, honestly (8)
Here we have a charade of a five-letter word from Perth, Scotland, for ‘neat’ and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] finish’, the result being a hyphenated (5-3) term from Perth, Australia, meaning ‘honestly’ (probably more familiar to non-antipodeans in its six-letter form, typically preceded by ‘fair’). The ‘neat’ word is definitely Scottish in its four-letter form (without the last letter), although I think the version here is in widespread use (Collins shows it without qualification).

28a Not attributes to be found in penitentiary (5)
This clue raises an interesting question – can a noun be ‘defined’ by something it isn’t? Clearly ‘not cats’ couldn’t indicate ‘dogs’, but ‘not  clergy’ could I think indicate ‘laity’. This seems to be somewhere between those two extremes, and I leave it to the reader to decide whether it is valid. The wordplay is so straightforward that the clue could hardly be described as unfair, whatever your conclusion as regards the foregoing.

29a One pursuing plan? Court somehow rejected dull spiel (5)
Perhaps the trickiest clue in the puzzle, a ten-letter word for someone pursuing a plan has an anagram (‘somehow’) of COURT removed (‘rejected’) to produce the solution. I’m a little surprised that Azed didn’t use something like ‘One instituting legal proceedings’ rather than ‘One pursuing plan’, in order to enhance the surface reading.

Down
2d Tailor’s material to employ with circling bands, right inside (11)
The wordplay here takes a bit of teasing out (rather like the material, perhaps). It involves a concatenation of the letters TO (‘from the clue’), a synonym for ’employ’, and a five-letter word for ‘circling bands’, into which the single-character abbreviation for ‘right’ has been inserted.

3d Close interest (4)
The ‘close’ in this double definition clue is how a guess in a game might be described if it was reasonably near to the right answer, but not very near.

5d Hamlet’s sword wound? Laborious, a V cut (5)
A seven-letter word for ‘laborious’ has the consecutive letters AV removed (‘cut’). The solution actually appears in The Taming of the Shrew: “Here’s snip and nip and cut and ***** and slash”.

7d A reader missing denouement? She was furious (6)
The letter A (from the clue) is followed by a word for a reader from which the last letter has been removed. This clue immediately made me think of the Hancock’s Half Hour episode The Missing Page, where the library copy of the murder mystery Lady Don’t Fall Backwards by Darcy Sarto borrowed by Mr H turns out to be lacking the final page, whereon detective Johnny Oxford would have unmasked the foul miscreant.

25d Disinfect mattress from below that’s disgusting (5)
A reversal (‘from below’) of a three-letter word for ‘mattress’ is followed by an interjection meaning “that’s disgusting”.

26d Lively as child with age (not adult) (5)
A three-letter child combines with the letters AGE from which the usual abbreviation for ‘adult’ has been removed, the result being a word which is shown by Chambers, though not by Azed, as ‘dialect’.

27d Inject mass within maximum, first off (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘mass’ is found inside (‘within’) a five-letter word meaning ‘maximum’ from which the first letter has been removed (‘first off’).

30d Orcadian estate of a kind without superior character? (4)
I must admit that I got the solution here and worked back to the five-letter word meaning ‘of a kind’ that is to be deprived of its initial letter (‘without superior character). I think that ‘of a particular kind’ would probably constitute a better indication.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,627 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

An enjoyable puzzle that I felt was just a tad below average difficulty – no clue struck me as being particularly tricky, although there were quite a few that weren’t trivial, with generous dollops of deception. In the online version, at least, there is an error in 19d (I’ve double-checked that I’ve identified the right one this week!), where ‘sewn’ should read ‘sown’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 24d, “What gallery displays in reproduction of it – see plaque (6)”. The ‘reproduction of it’ here indicates an anagram of a word that does not itself appear in the clue. Strictly speaking, this represents an indirect anagram, something which has been outlawed in crosswords since the 1970s, when clues such as this one from the Stinker in Weekend magazine were not uncommon:

“Changing course naturally involves work (4)” for OPUS, being an anagram of SOUP.

These days a clue such as this would be unacceptable, even in a libertarian puzzle – for an anagram of a word or words which do not themselves appear in the clue to be allowable, there must be an almost one-to-one relationship between the indication and the word to be deduced. So this Azed clue from a few years back for LUCRE, “Persistent source of evil, he escapes Poirot deviously?” [(he)RCULE*], is fine, as in my view would be “Intend replacement of French capital with euros initially” for ASPIRE [PARIS* + E(uros)]. The issue here is very much about fairness to the solver, and neither of these clues, nor the clue in today’s puzzle, seem to me in any way unfair.

Across
14a Patten returned to home, leaving East (5)
A nice clue, with a surface reading that refers to Chris Patten’s stint in Hong Kong as its last governor. The wordplay involves a reversal (‘returned’) of the word TO (from the clue) plus a four-letter word for ‘home’, with the usual abbreviation for ‘East’ having been removed from the latter.

15a What could indicate lake for a ramble? (7)
A clue bearing Azed’s hallmark, where interpreting the solution as a (2,3,2) phrase could lead the solver to a word meaning ‘lake’.

20a Break for Shakespeare during Lent, reread slowly (10)
A little disappointing that the letters LENT appear consecutively in the solution, although the wordplay has a six-letter Shakespearean word meaning ‘break’, in the sense of ‘break in’ or ‘subdue’, inside (‘during’) an anagram (‘reread’) of LENT. One of my bugbears is the use of ‘during’ as an insertion indicator – I’ve never been able to see any justification for it, given that the word is only ever used in a temporal sense.

22a Fumaroles, thick, in sun’s gravelly ridge (10)
A three-letter word for ‘thick’ is inserted into a five-letter word meaning “sun’s” (or ‘of the sun’) and a two-letter term for a bank of gravel or sand to be seen with roughly similar frequency in glaciated regions, formerly glaciated regions, and barred crosswords.

25a Tiny sea creatures, run over, a doctor brought back (8)
Two single-letter abbreviations are followed by a reversal (‘brought back’) of the letter A (from the clue) and a word meaning ‘[to] re-equip and repair’, ie (just about, anyway) ‘[to] doctor’.

29a It could give sheep a real itch, with regular scratching (7)
An &lit, where the solution ‘could give’ (ie ‘is an anagram of’) SHEEP A REAL ITCH from which alternate letters have been deleted (‘with regular scratching’).

31a Touch may precede this form of elution (7)
The ‘Touch’ here should be interpreted as ‘the ball going into touch’.

33a Scottish sound from water edging river (4)
As here, Azed often uses ‘water’ to indicate the sort that might be passed. The definition is perhaps a slight stretch, with the answer and sound³ in Chambers having somewhat similar, though certainly not identical, meanings.

34a Nick (according to Walter) that is rejected by Peggy (4)
Another diminutive form of ‘Margaret’ has the pair of letters typically indicated by ‘that is’ removed (‘that is rejected’) to produce a verb coined by Walter Scott in a sense transferred from the name of a bird notorious for a particular habit. If someone was known as ‘Peggy’ would they also be known by the name here? Do we care? Probably not.

Down
2d Ray with bit of luminance round shiny fabric (5)
The Italian spelling of the note anglicized as ‘ray’ has the SI measure of luminance placed around it.

4d Religious teacher, one with appropriate qualifications in a nave, given uplift (6)
I don’t recall coming across this meaning of ‘nave’ before, although that’s probably down to my memory rather than the length of my solving career. Anyway, here we have the two letters applied to someone with an advanced degree in divinity (‘one with appropriate qualifications’) contained by A (from the clue) and the three-letter word synonymous with nave² after they have been reversed (‘given uplift’).

8d Dance from Hungary, one preceding prohibition age (8)
A four-element (1,1,3,3) charade, and a slow dance from Cuba in 2/4 time.

10d Fantasy? I’m surprised this is dismissed (4)
A two-letter word for “I’m surprised” is followed by THIS from which the letters IS have been removed (‘is dismissed’).

19d Last seed sown flowered like US corn (8)
Although the ‘US’ appears in this clue to indicate an American spelling, the use of the verb here to describe the blooming of maize or sugar-cane is itself largely confined to the US.

21d Old love before love turned arid, forming introductions (7)
A two-letter word for a former love is followed by the usual single-character representation of ‘love’ and an anagram (‘turned’) of ARID.

23d Teacher’s pointer to save, fine in place of rule (6)
A word meaning ‘to save’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘rule’ replaced by the one for ‘fine’; derived from the Latin word for ‘straw’, the solution is a small stick or pin used to point out the letters to children learning to read.

24d What gallery displays in reproduction of it – see plaque (6)
A three-letter word for what a gallery displays is contained by an anagram of the same word (‘reproduction of it’). The ‘see’ in effect means ‘the solver will see a word for’.

27d Earthy stuff rotund character removed from Swedish location (4)
A five-letter Swedish city has a ‘rotund character’ removed to produce a term for the light, loamy soil produced by the disintegration of a rock of the same name.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,626 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Another one that struck me as being very close to the middle of the difficulty range. The four 12-letter solutions crossing at the centre of the grid were an unusual feature, while the clues were for the most part an entertaining set including a couple of ‘&lits’. Even more unusual was the touch of wit in an unexpected place, the emboldened guidance section (does this bit at the foot of the puzzle which includes the recommended reference have an accepted name? If so, I don’t know what it is).

Note that there is a minor error in the clue for 2d (apparently confined to the online version), which should read ‘Trebles I placed under training of parson’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 20d, “See carpet in hall for what’s spilt from salad bowl? (7)”. The wordplay has a three-letter word for a carpet inside the Latin word for a hall, but the point of interest here is the definition, “what’s spilt from salad bowl?”. The question mark suggests that this definition isn’t going to be found in a dictionary, and indeed the solution is simply a synonym for rocket, the herb found in many a Mediterranean salad. But in the salad, right, not spilt from it? Azed has taken something of a liberty here in order to enhance the surface reading, and I can’t help feeling that he’s gone a little too far – “what’s in salad bowl?’ or the like would be fine, but I think the ‘spilt’ thing goes beyond what is acceptable and would I believe be rejected by any barred puzzle editor.

Across
1a Get the better of, where love is involved? (5)
An &lit to get things under way, with a four-letter word meaning ‘get the better of’ containing the usual single-character representation of ‘love’ (‘where love is involved’).

12a Grande passion, a trap for Jock with four involved (8, 2 words)
One that, like myself, you may well get from the definition and the last part of the wordplay, this in its entirety being a charade of A (from the clue), a three-letter Scots word for a mouth (‘trap for Jock’, not to be confused with a jockstrap), and an anagram (‘involved’) of FOUR. The solution is divided (5,3).

13a What’ll make you go dizzy, knocked back? (4)
Here’s the second &lit, the solution being a reversal (‘knocked back’) of something that would make you go dizzy.

14a Ship’s timber, fine bottom but not bow (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘fine’ is followed by a word for a bottom (or at least a part thereof) from which the first letter has been removed (‘not bow’). The solution is permanently linked in my mind with the title of the 1970 comedy film written by and starring Ronnie Barker, which contains minimal dialogue but multitudinous sound effects, many of them rather coarse.

16a Boat people identifiable by a few short lines (5)
A double definition clue, the solving of which depends on you being familiar with either the boat-dwelling population of Canton or the Japanese verse form consisting of five lines and thirty-one syllables; those steeped in the language of the barred crossword may well know both.

18a Chapel: see one go here after church (7)
A nicely-disguised wordplay, which has a two-letter word for ‘one’  and a three-letter word for ‘[a] go’ following an abbreviation for ‘church’.

22a A little bit astray, he’s inside – one won’t be cured (12, 2 words)
A four-letter word for ‘a little bit’ is followed by a six-letter word meaning ‘astray’ into which the letters HE have been inserted (“he’s inside”). The solution is (5,7).

27a Business, one that’s died, parts relocated (5)
A five-letter word for something that is dead or ruined beyond recovery has its first three letters exchanged with its last two (‘parts relocated’).

29a Grand jug, feature of crest, purple (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Grand’ is followed by a word for a type of Greek wine jug

34a Cancel from bequest a reward reversed (5)
One of those clues where both the solution and one wordplay element are relatively obscure – the letter A (from the clue) is followed by a reversal of a word for ‘reward’ or ‘what is bestowed for merit’, giving a legal term meaning ‘to revoke the bequest of (a legacy etc)’.

Down
5d Ambitious climber, not on watch, about to freeze (12)
A three-letter word for ‘not on’ and a six-letter word for a type of watch that has a case to protect the glass in the event of a fall from one’s horse are set around a word meaning ‘to freeze’. The solution is hyphenated, (6-6), and is not a term I remember coming across previously.

10d Rachmanite, wretch trapping tiresome fool, see, had up (8)
The wordplay here has a three-letter ‘wretch’ containing (‘trapping’) a four-letter slang term for an irritating fool together with the letter of the alphabet represented by ‘see’. 

11d Sweet wine: see message on gift to Katharine? (5)
One is asked to imagine the two words (2,3) which might be written on the tag attached to Katharine’s gift.

17d Wife of prince he shuts in most of zenana with one (8)
The element indicated by ‘zenana’ is usually spelt with an ‘e’ as the fourth letter, but here it is the alternative version with an ‘a’ in that position which is required. It is shorn of its last letter (ie ‘most of zenana) and shut inside a three-letter word for ‘[a] he’, the whole lot then being followed by the Roman numeral representing ‘one’.

25d See one who wrote poetically of love, what few will have avoided (5)
Once again we have ‘see’ as the name of a letter of the alphabet, this time followed by the English name given to the Roman poet hugely popular back in the day for his erotic poetry. The ‘definition’ reinforces the message in the notes section, and we know from his recent indisposition that Azed cannot be counted amongst ‘the few’.

26d Decorate with stones giving distinguished Turk a dash (4)
A three-letter word for a Turkish governor of a province or district (often spelt with a closing ‘y’ rather than the ‘g’ seen here) is followed by the name of a unit of measurement used in printing (though not, strictly speaking, a dash – that would need to be a ?? dash or a ?? rule).

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,625 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This puzzle seemed to me to sit very close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. A 13×11 grid, which is by no means unusual for Azed, although the presence of two three-letter words came as more of a surprise. Some nice clues in there, though perhaps nothing truly outstanding.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 29d, “Disciple holds one up in sanctum sanctorum (4)”. Nothing too difficult about the wordplay, a three-letter synonym for ‘disciple’ being put around A (‘one’) and the whole lot reversed (‘up’). It’s very rarely that I select an Azed clue in order to demonstrate a trap for setters that Azed has himself fallen into, but here we have an instance – ‘Disciple holds one’ is fine for SOAN, but as the clue is worded the ‘up’ can only refer to the ‘one’ (not the whole lot) and since a reversal of A is still A, ‘Disciple holds one up’ also leads to SOAN. In order for the ‘up’ to refer to the result of the preceding elements, a participle phrase is required, so here the clue needs to read ‘Disciple holding one up in sanctum sanctorum’.

Across
12a Jock’s husky, no good when fed nothing (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘no good’ (or at least ‘bad of its kind’) is ‘fed’ (contains) the usual single-character representation of ‘nothing’.

14a Former commander at sea, one having pain trapping his foreign counterpart (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a three-letter (French) word for pain are put around (‘trapping’) a term for a Muslim ruler or commander, ie the counterpart of the ‘commander’ (but nothing to do with ‘Former’ or ‘at sea’).

16a Monkey? One accepted in place of clue (4)
You could argue that this is an &lit of sorts, although I wouldn’t be inclined to agree. The wordplay references the definition ‘Monkey’, wherein a three-letter word meaning ‘clue’ must be replaced by…well, it could be a single-letter word for ‘one’ or the usual abbreviation for ‘accepted’, take your pick. I would have preferred “One’s accepted’ to “One accepted”.

17a Beside river in spate? Less than half – but it’s fairly high (3)
A short answer, but a lengthy clue featuring a definition preceded by two wordplays, the first a charade of a two-letter word meaning ‘beside’ and the standard abbreviation for ‘river’, the second involving a seven-letter word for a spate or rushing stream losing its last four letters (‘less than half’).

22a Learner lacking in courage making pass (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Learner’ is removed from (‘lacking in’) a slang term for courage.

28a Cold wind returning, accounting for young pampas creature (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ is followed by a three-letter word for ‘wind’ (particularly a light breeze) which has been reversed (‘returning’). The solution does not feature in some earlier editions of Chambers.

29a Secluded spot, acceptable after retiring certainly (4)
Here we have a two-letter informal word meaning (among many other things) ‘acceptable’ reversed (‘after retiring’), plus another informal word meaning ‘certainly’ .Parsing this clue may be made a little trickier by the fact that the second word can mean both ‘acceptable’ and ‘certainly’.

31a Trouble cutting off furlong round Grand Canyon (5)
A five-letter word for ‘trouble’ with the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘furlong’ removed (‘cutting off furlong’) is put round a single-character abbreviation for 1,000 (‘Grand’). I will leave the reader to decide whether a ‘grand’ and the abbreviation here come to the same thing (but I think that in common usage they probably do).

Down
1d Old Harry, eccentric, that may reveal winning number (11, 2 words)
A charade made up of another name (one of many) for the Devil (‘Old Harry’) and a four-letter term for an eccentric. The solution is actually given by Chambers as a single word.

3d African people turned up round edge of equator (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘turned’ is reversed (‘up’) around the first letter (‘edge’) of the word ‘equator’.

4d Making awkward progress dropping bling – it’s not real (4)
A nine-letter word for ‘making awkward progress’ has the letters BLING removed (‘dropping bling’). I can’t escape the feeling that a little more polishing might have produced a really nice clue here, but I could be wrong.

5d Mother and children lacking nothing on which games are played (7)
A three-letter term for a mother is followed by a five-letter word for ‘children’ from which the usual one-letter representation of ‘nothing’ has been extracted (‘lacking nothing’), the result being a word derived from the Dutch language for the setting of a jeu de dames, and one which I don’t remember coming across before.

6d Franco-US artist supplied by fellow serving drinks (not his first) (5)
My knowledge of the art world is not extensive, and it certainly didn’t encompass the artist born Armand Fernandez in 1928 who, according to his Wikipedia entry, ‘moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (cachets, allures d’objet) to using them as the artworks themselves. He is best known for his Accumulations and destruction/recomposition of objects.’ Suffice to say that I won’t be investigating his back catalogue.

8d Raptor having a catch under wing (6)
A (from the clue) and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] catch’ follow an American term for a wing of a building that has a particular shape.

13d Some cows’ll follow you wanting nothing – like a rash? (6)
A Scots word for ‘cows’ that is no stranger to the barred crossword follows the letters YOU from which that familiar representation of ‘nothing’ (for the third time of asking) has been removed. Note that Azed has (as you would expect) avoided the trap of writing ‘Some cows follow’, since in order for the wordplay to be grammatically sound this would have to be ‘Some cows follows’; the future tense, where the singular and plural forms are indistinguishable, once more comes to the rescue.

19d Typical of theologian, allowing some obscurity (7)
A three-letter shortened form of a six-letter word meaning ‘allowing’ is followed by a meteorological phenomenon that (perhaps when viewed through itself) might just about mean ‘obscurity’.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,624 ‘Right and Left’

Difficulty rating: (4 / 10)

The ‘Right and Left’ specials are clearly among Azed’s favourites – he has set 21 for competitions and a good many more as non-comp puzzles, the most recent being in June last year. I enjoy both writing and solving double clues, the art of producing which is in running the two halves together such that, rather like Ernie Wise’s putative hairpiece, you can’t see the join. There’s nothing too difficult about this puzzle, the clues being (with very few exceptions) generous, but it’s well worth spending time at the outset to work out the entry across the top as it is the only thing that determines where everything else goes. There are a couple of potential traps to avoid – the second half of the clue at 15a is ambiguous, so make sure you’ve got a couple of checkers before entering it; and the only unique connection between the top and bottom halves is the intersection of 2d and 11a – if you start filling in the bottom half of the puzzle without having entered one of the 2d/11a pairs, be prepared to swap the two halves over in order to fit the answers to 11a in!

Note that the enumeration for 4d should be (5,5).

I have provided some notes on selected clues below, followed by a checklist of the break points in each clue and the half of the puzzle to which each answer relates for those who want to check their understanding of a particular clue or to get a little extra help.

Setters’ Corner: There is nothing particularly difficult about writing ‘double’ clues of the sort in this puzzle. the only essentials being that there is no overlap between the two individual clues (ie no words are being used by both clues) and that there is no padding between them (ie no superfluous words that belong to neither clue). The skill, however, is in writing a clue that appears to be a single piece of prose and wherein the cesura between the two halves is craftily concealed. A double clue consisting of two unrelated sentences, each leading to one answer, would be sound but extremely weak. Tom Borland’s winning entry for UPREAR/GOUTTE  (AZ comp 1875) is an excellent example of a good double clue, the apparent golfing context running right through and the break coming between ‘lift’ and ‘out’, two words which on the face of it are bound together:

Knowing rules about drainage channel, lift out and get free drop (6,6) [UP + (RR around EA), (OUT + GET)*]

Across
1a Each of the following clues, maybe, a cheat (12)
Azed normally provides an entry for the top of a ‘Right and Left’ puzzle which consists of two parts divided 6+6 , may well be hyphenated, and has a connection (often in the first half) to the concept of duality. If you bear this in mind, getting the answer here shouldn’t give you too much trouble and is a huge help when it comes to the rest of the solve.

10a Low-grade paper on old actor: ‘Needs to be lambasted after line filmed for the silver screen‘ (6,6)
The first part here is a charade of that familiar piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘on’ or ‘concerning’ and the surname taken by the actor and theatre manager Herbert Beerbohm; his half-brother Max Beerbohm is said to have jokingly claimed that Herbert added the ???? to his name because it was easier for audiences than shouting “Beerbohm! Beerbohm!” at curtain calls. He fathered a number of illegitimate children, including the film director Carol Reed and Peter Reed, himself the father of actor Oliver Reed.

11a Tot, rather dull, rather substandard male taken in by first promise, formerly (6,6)
This pair is key to working out which bit goes where in the bottom half of the puzzle. The first part is a charade of a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] tot’ and another three-letter word for ‘rather dull’, the result being a dialect form (‘substandard’) of a word meaning ‘rather’. Incidentally, I initially thought that the solution was going to be NUMBER, perfectly well defined by both ‘Tot’ and ‘rather dull’.

15a Old crone in gathering for Indian curry dish may go crazy about recipe for fish (6,6)
A familiar three-letter word for a crone is contained by a gathering, perhaps for the purposes of sewing or spelling.

An anagram (‘crazy’) of MAY GO contains the usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’ – but be careful, there are two equally good answers, so don’t enter this one until you’ve got one of the first five letters (the last is shared by both candidates).

18a When circumambulating lake princes played lyre after it recalled whence shingles originate? (6,6)
A two-letter word for ‘when’ containing (‘circumambulating’) an obsolete spelling of a common word for a lake (particularly in place names) provides the first answer.

For the second, an anagram (‘played’) of LYRE follows a reversal of the word IT (‘after it recalled’), while the definition is mildly cryptic.

Down
2d Wire cutter user manipulated with care applied to restricting new loose rock visible to viewers (8,8)
The first answer comes from an anagram (‘manipulated’) of USER and CARE.

The second requires a short word meaning (among other things) ‘applied to’ being put around (‘restricting’) the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ plus a term for loose rock.

9d Sir Henry (no gent) suddenly appearing after queen, awe and tears being poured out in oceans (8,8)
The first part here has a word meaning ‘suddenly appearing’ from which the letters GENT have been removed (‘no gent’) being put after the name of a Good Queen. ‘Sir Henry’ is a prolific 19th century inventor, best known for his converter.

11d Lynx from Canadian province served in ship special stuffed in Pacific state savoury, spicy (6,6)
The two-letter abbreviation for the name of a particular Canadian province is contained by (‘served in’) a word for a ship.

For part two, the usual abbreviation for ‘special’ is put inside the name of a Pacific state.

12d What I’m served in pub maybe contains grand spider – slip off, begone! (6,6)
A two-word expression that Azed might use to describe his pint of beer (“What I’m served in pub maybe”) contains the usual abbreviation for ‘grand’.

14d Musical delivery man, picker of winners to sing part of barcarole (5,5)
The first part here will make sense to those Premium Bond holders who remember The Fastest Milkman in the West (“‘cos pasteurised is best”).

(definitions are underlined)

Checklist:

Across

In 6, the break occurs at a/medicine, and the answers are entered Right then Left; 7: original/deed, R+L; 8: temple/layout, R+L; 10: actor/Needs, R+L; 11; substandard/male, R+L; 15: dish/may, L+R; 16: new/Oscar, R+L; 17: pleased/to, R+L; 18: princes/played, R+L

Down

In 1, the break occurs at churchman/suffers, and the answers are entered Right then Left; 2: care/applied, R+L; 3: inventory/one, L+R; 4: generated/disappointing, L+R, 5: wife/tell, L+R; 9: queen/awe, L+R; 11: ship/special, L+R; 12: spider/slip, R+L; 13: spouts/extract, R+L; 14: winners/to, R+L

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,623 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

The needle on the Difficultometer® went well past the halfway mark this week. There were several trademark Azed clues, and one or two which only he could possibly have got away with (22d – yes, I’m talking about you).

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 17a, “Red dye is one, when mixed (5)”. I’ve been solving a number of themed puzzles recently for blogging purposes, and I’ve encountered some anagram indicators that I didn’t care for at all (eg ‘sent’ and ‘stupid’). Generally speaking, I have no issues with Azed’s indicators, but I have a bit of a thing about ‘mixed’ on its own being applied to a single word or group of words. I just don’t that a single thing can be ‘mixed’ – I have no problem with ‘X mixed up’ or ‘X mixed with Y’. I think the get-out for Azed here is that he has always been of the opinion that a single series of words can govern a verb in the plural (ie ‘is one jumble’ can indicate an anagram of ‘is one’), so I guess he would argue that the words ‘is’ and ‘one’ can similarly be treated here as ‘is [and] one’, which makes ‘when mixed’ perfectly acceptable.

Across
11a Point in Ptolemaic system, as in variant of 10 (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘as’ or ‘in the capacity of’ and taken straight from Latin makes its first appearance, inside an anagram (‘variant’) of the literal representation of ’10’. You could argue that this is an indirect anagram, and I suppose that technically you’d be right. Technically.

13a This horse I pen carelessly may be escaping (4)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the solution (‘this horse’) and I PEN can be rearranged (‘carelessly’) to form ESCAPING. The ‘horse’ is of a very different colour to the quadrupedal variety.

15a Cheese biscuit maybe Spooner’s swallowed with fizzy pop? (7)
Azed usually confines his Spoonerisms to the special puzzles devoted to the genre, but here he includes one in a plain puzzle. We have to put a word meaning ‘swallowed’ or ‘consumed’ together with the name of a particular fizzy drink that is ‘the Real Thing’, and apply the Spooner treatment to it.

16a Packs up loaves (5)
A double definition clue where neither is particularly easy; in the first sense the word would almost invariably be followed by ‘out’ in order to equate to ‘packs up’, and in the second sense we are looking at two slang terms, the one in the clue being Cockney rhyming slang via ‘loaf of bread’.

19a Poppet giving hint about somebody turned aside (10)
A five-letter word for an intuitive feeling (also given by Chambers as ‘hint’) contains a three-letter word for ‘somebody’ and a two-letter word for ‘aside’ which has been reversed (‘turned’).

23a Choir following words of old song stank (5)
The two-letter abbreviation for ‘choir’ is no problem, but it must be preceded by a three-letter archaism for the words of a song (put a -ty on the end and you have a more familiar word for a simple song), and the definition is based not on the past tense of ‘stink’ but on stank² in Chambers.

24a With which ballet-dancer kicks off jump? (5)
An &lit, where the wordplay is a charade of the first letter of ‘ballet-dancer’ (ie ‘With which ballet dancer kicks off’) and a four-letter word meaning ‘jump’. The solution has an acute accent on the last letter, but diacritical marks are ignored in the language of the crossword.

29a Fragrant additive – some rock’s containing this, not half (9. 2 words)
A six-letter rock of the dark, igneous kind with an S on the end (“some rock’s”) is set around half of the word ‘this’. The solution is a familiar (4,5) term.

30a Stone square round Vincent’s home for a time – unlike his famous work? (8)
The normal abbreviations for ‘stone’ and ‘square’ (2 letters and 1 letter respectively) are set around the name of the city in France where Van Gogh lived for more than a year during 1888 and1889, and where his DIY ear surgery took place. The solution makes me, although probably no-one else, think of King Crimson, but relates also to Van Gogh’s painting executed in June 1889, depicting the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an imaginary village. I hope you will excuse me for quoting a clue I wrote a few years ago, “Like Vincent’s night (large part of opening lines) (6)”.

31a Indication of some rock fan being bowled over? (4)
The question mark is a fair way away from the ‘fan’, but it is there to show that the latter is an indication by example, the word which must be reversed (‘bowled over’) to produce the answer being a fan specifically in the sense of a blade on a windmill. The solution is a term which could be applied to rocks that date to a certain period.

Down
1d Climber nipped by wingless fly complained (8)
The fly is a crossword regular, no wings and three letters, and it is the name given to various climbing plants of the pea family – itself often used to indicate the rather handy ‘ers’ in barred puzzles – which is contained (‘nipped’) by it to produce a word with an unusual combination of starting letters.

3d Grass turned up admitting need for bottle (7)
A three-letter word for an Ethiopian cereal grass is reversed (‘turned up’) around (‘admitting’) a familiar four-letter word meaning ”need’ or ‘deficiency’. There are two alternatives for the unchecked central letter, but one satisfies neither the wordplay nor the definition.

4d What waiters offer us after draughts? (5)
This clue could be viewed as an ‘offshoot &lit’, since the whole thing offers a definition of the answer (arguably no better than the first three words, though). The last three words constitute the wordplay, and very straightforward it is once you think about draughts being a game.

5d Fishy perhaps, as in a cubist’s doodle (10)
The second appearance of that three-letter Latin word for ‘in the capacity of’ (‘as’), here seen inside an anagram of A CUBIST. The indication of the anagram is rather strange.

8d Has wobbly movement? Not I! Not true if I’ve this (9)
This is not an &lit as such, rather a clue where the definition references the wordplay, an anagram (‘wobbly’) of HAS followed by a seven-letter word for ‘movement’ (which can on occasion be prefixed by tele-) from which the letter I has been removed (‘Not I’). The two negatives in the clue need to be taken into account, so Azed would indeed have wobbly movement if he had this.

14d Love to stretch out, hot, inside cover, one of many to be seen in tea plantation? (9, 2 words)
A charade of the usual abbreviation for ‘love’  a three-letter word meaning ‘to stretch out’, and the standard abbreviation for ‘hot’ is placed inside a four-letter word for a covering (perhaps of paint, maybe many-coloured), the result being a (6,3) item of headgear.

18d One undressed may turn red with this – O! (8)
This is effectively a composite anagram &lit, but I couldn’t bring myself to underline the ‘O!’ as it doesn’t contribute in any way to the definition. The letters of ONE UNDRESSED can be rearranged (‘may turn [into]’) RED plus the solution (‘this’) plus O.

22d Prone to sniffiness? John may make you this by the sound of it (6)
If you say out loud the word ‘you’ followed by the solution here, you will realize what sort of ‘john’ Azed is referring to.

24d Pro demanding money (5)
A second double definition clue, although I’m not sure that I like ‘demanding’ as a linking word. The pro is a fille de joie, and the money is the title of a 1980s sitcom featuring Timothy West.

25d Contraction gripping wife pressed from below (4)
Here you need to imagine a comma between ‘wife’ and ‘pressed’, so it is a three-letter word meaning ‘pressed’ (or ‘perched’) which is reversed (‘from below’) around (‘gripping’) the usual abbreviation for ‘wife’. The definition is certainly an unusual one – would ‘abbreviation’ be acceptable as a definition of USSR?

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,622 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This struck me as being a puzzle of average difficulty which in terms of entertainment was also around the middle of the Azed spectrum. There were a couple of minor errors, but nothing that should have spoiled the enjoyment of solving it.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 14a, “Like devout Muslim, endlessly, if such after conversion (5)”. Nothing too difficult about this clue, an anagram (‘after conversion’) of IF SUCH missing the last letter (‘endlessly’). But hang on! If the clue read “…in such, endlessly”, this interpretation would be correct. Surely “…endlessly, if such” tell us that it is the word ‘if’ which is to be deprived of its end? In favour of Azed’s construction, ‘if such’ is a single phrase, and its elements are not separated by any punctuation marks; if we are happy with ‘rather rare in the middle’ in 13a then we certainly shouldn’t have a problem with it. I think it’s fine, although personally I wouldn’t be entirely satisfied with “Endlessly, lad is seen drifting, devoid of purpose” for IDEALESS, but the issue is very easily fixed by moving the ‘endlessly’ after the word ‘seen’.

Across
11a Personal article? Fool’s beginning at the end (4)
A word for a fool, or at least someone who’s not the sharpest bend in the road, has the first letter moved to the end (‘beginning at the end’) to produce  a hyphenated (2-2) abbreviation used in journalistic circles.

12a Keep on about repair, men needed (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘repair’ has the letters MEN removed (‘men needed’), the result being a verb that means ‘to instil by constant repetition’, probably more familiar in its alternative form without the closing letter.

13a Hamburger’s additive often, rather rare in the middle (4)
Not my favourite clue by any means – the wordplay is straightforward, and the term Hamburger is indeed used to describe a native of Hamburg, but the word ‘additive’ has a very specific meaning, and it isn’t the one that’s required here.

18a Sandwich made with e.g. kipper involving oven (7)
Since I had just tucked into two slices of Warburton’s finest (nicely browned, with butter and home-made marmalade), the answer here leapt readily into my mind. The wordplay has an item of attire which might be prefixed by the word ‘kipper’ containing (‘involving’) the sort of oven once much housed in Kent and Sussex.

23a Enter (dropping in), frequently breaking extremities from behind (7, 2 words)
A three-letter word for ‘frequently’ of the largely poetic kind  is inserted into (‘breaking’) a word for those extremities which are themselves attached to the lower extremities, and the whole lot is then reversed (‘from behind’). Since ‘Enter’ is not synonymous with the answer, but rather with the answer when followed by ‘in’, the ‘(dropping in)’ is there to redress the balance.

30a African minstrel expending love within? It was true on screen (4)
Those with even a passing knowledge of John Wayne’s cinematic performances will probably have got the answer before working out the name of the African minstrel who has surrendered the usual single-character representation of ‘love’ (‘expending love within’) to produce the word needed to accompany ‘True’ in the title of a 1969 film.

34a Maid, around end, awfully lined, showing resolve (12)
A three-letter (obsolete or dialect) word for a dairymaid contains (‘around’) both a four-letter, er, word for an end and an anagram (‘awfully’) of LINED.

Down
2d Spun pulu found in flax, yielding sedative (8)
Here we have an anagram (‘spun’) of PULU inside an obsolete (though not flagged as such) word for flax which I always forget (it could also be indicated by ‘thread’). Whether the answer can legitimately be defined by ‘sedative’ (or ‘yielding sedative’) is a moot point – Chambers gives the solution only as an adjective, the meaning of which is clarified by OED as ‘resembling a bunch of hops’, so that’s no good, but OED also shows it as an alternative spelling of the seven-letter noun, so it’s probably just about ok.

3d Old Scottish porter judge preferred to English (5)
The 18th century Scottish porter makes regular appearances in crosswords, and we assemble him here by putting a four-letter word for a magistrate in Muslim countries on top of the usual abbreviation for ‘English’. I’m not particularly keen on ‘preferred to’ being used to mean ‘set ahead of’, but it’s certainly not unfair.

4d Non-religious believer avoiding our circuitous path around lives (5)
Here’s we have one of those missing commas. Well, actually we don’t have it, but it needs to be imagined between ‘our’ and ‘circuitous’, such that the wordplay translates as a word for a circuitous route, missing the letters OUR (‘avoiding our’), being set around a two-letter word meaning ‘lives’.

8d Mouldy old tart woman scrapped (4)
A five-letter tart (of the fille de joie variety) has a single-letter abbreviation for ‘woman’ removed (‘scrapped’). This is an abbreviation known only to Azed, and one which he uses surprisingly often – the legitimate abbreviation is for ‘women’ or “women’s”, in a clothing context. As here, ‘wife’ is almost invariably a sound alternative.

15d Member of wind section hit seventh note in vivace (9)
An informal three-letter word for ‘hit’ (also meaning ‘obtain’) and the seventh note in the scale according to Julie Andrews are contained by an approximate translation of the Italian ‘vivace’. I think ‘veloce’ might be more accurate, but it wouldn’t work in the surface reading.

22d Writing I’m assigned to brought up what links religion and the law (6)
The two-letter abbreviation frequently indicated by ‘writing’ in Azed puzzles is followed by the letters IM (from the clue) and a preposition meaning ‘assigned to’, the entire charade being reversed (‘brought up’) to provide the solution.

25d Like old undyed cloth, say, in mostly pale or dull (5)
The two-letter abbreviation often used to mean ‘say’ is contained by a word meaning ‘grey’ or ‘dull’ from which the last letter has been dropped (‘mostly’). I think the inclusion of ‘old’ is an error – although fabrics are not exactly my thing, I believe that the word is in current use.

26d Where was he? Laying lines in track (5)
The two-letter abbreviation for ‘lines’ is contained by a three-letter word for a track, the result being the name of a bobble-hatted character created by Martin Handford. In the US, he has a different name, which shares the first three letters. Finding him became progressively harder – in the first book he occupied on average a whopping one square centimetre (or thereabouts), but by the fourth book he had been reduced to a miserly 0.2 cm², while the number of surrounding characters had increased nearly fourfold.

28d Put down-payment on grass by outside shed (4)
A comma needs to be mentally added between ‘grass’ and ‘by’, since a six-letter word for a type of grass must lose the peripheral letters BY (‘by outside shed’).

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,621 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

A plain puzzle that I thought was significantly above the midpoint of the difficulty spectrum and featured one clue that I would suggest was bordering on unsolvable without any checked letters – I would have upped the difficulty rating except that once the three checkers were in place it became a lot easier.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 17a, “Fellow with little English cheated (4)”. The point I wanted to make here is that as a setter you should look wherever possible to avoid the obvious treatment of a word (apart from anything else, the chances are it’s been clued that way before). Here there is a concise but dull three-worder, “Fellow English cheated”, but Azed has chosen to give us extra information about the scam, adding ‘with’ to join the wordplay elements and  using ‘little English’ to indicate the abbreviation, both perfectly legitimate. The result is a clue which is parsed identically but offers a much more interesting story.

Across
12a Waste dump, upper surface on fire (6)
A 3+3 wordplay, with the second element element invariably being seen followed by ‘up’ and meaning ‘angry’ or ‘irritated’.

13a Everyone stays for personality, objectively? (6)
If everyone stays, it’s clear that…(4,2). The solution is hyphenated, 3-3, and is the sort of word that I try very hard not to include in my own puzzles because defining it in a clue-friendly way is basically impossible. Fair play to Azed – he’s done his best!

14a Gardener’s first novel bud (5)
The first letter from ‘Gardener’ is followed by the title of a novel – although there are a lot of novels out there, there aren’t too many that are (i) famous enough to feature in a puzzle, and (ii) have titles of just four letters. Actually, I can only think of this one.

18a Stable placed in grassy field, as is deliberate (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘safe’ or ‘secure’ is placed inside a word for a grassy field, the poetic form of a six-letter term rather less conducive to versification. I couldn’t decide whether ‘as is’ could legitimately be part of the definition – it perhaps could, but it certainly doesn’t need to be.

23a Slogan relative with love inserted in part of threadwork (8, 2 words)
This is a tricky one, made easier by consulting Chambers with regard to both ‘slogan’ and ‘relative’; the latter is found to have a meaning of ‘a relative pronoun’, and it is the obvious three-letter relative pronoun which has the usual representation of ‘love’ inserted, before the combination is itself placed inside a four-letter word for ‘the threads stretched out lengthways in a loom’ (and a factor familiar to all Star Trek fans). The solution is (3.5), and immediately makes me (but almost certainly no-one else) think of Basil Brush’s stories of ‘Des P Rado’, and specifically the song (“He’s a brave, brave man” “Who?” “Des P Rado”) containing the line “And everywhere you go you’ll hear his *** *****”. Which in turn reminds me of the cartoon showing Basil being grilled by a member of airport security staff who is telling him “You say popular catchphrase, we say bomb threat.”

25a One such (though not born abroad!) (4)
I did wonder whether part of this clue was missing, the intended version being perhaps something along the lines of “Leading mobster? One such (though not born abroad!)”, I eventually concluded that since it works as it stands (after a fashion, at least), this probably is how Azed meant it to appear. Probably. But I’m sure it will draw some comment from solvers and will be mentioned in the Slip! Anyway, the surname of Alphonse Gabriel, sometimes known as ‘Scarface’, and probably the most famous organized crime boss of them all  (ie ‘one such’) loses the two-letter French word for ‘born’ (ie ‘not born abroad’) to produce a term for…an organized crime boss. If you got that one without checkers, you must be Azed!

29a What’ll demonstrate such attainment? By its sound, a musical group will, briefly (8)
As you may know, homophones are not my thing, but this was an entertaining one. A musical group is ‘a choir’ and ‘will, briefly’ is “‘ll”.

33a Group of stars to perform touring Carmen? (5)
I have a strong feeling that Azed has previously used ‘Carmen’ to indicate a group of people who provide a breakdown service for motorists, but I’d forgotten and therefore had to work it out all over again. In the wordplay there is a two-letter word meaning ‘perform’ containing (‘touring’) them. I don’t at all like ‘touring’ as a containment indicator, as there is no way that it has any sense of containment; ‘touring’ an area might mean travelling round it, but not in the required sense.

Down
4d Major flow of water in Scots gully (5)
A clue with two definitions, the first referring to a ‘major flow’ that passes through France and Switzerland and the second to a gully on Scottish roof.

6d Bit of wood on old rocker (5)
A three-letter word for a ‘bit of wood’ (a reasonably substantial one) is followed by an old form of the word ‘on’ (‘on old’), differing only in its first letter. The answer is a rocking (but not rolling) stone.

8d Chaps captivated came across love token (7)
At minimum there surely has to be a comma between ‘captivated’ and ‘came’ in order to make the wordplay sound. I appreciate that it’s hard to make the surface reading work with elements used here, but “Chaps captivated came across” doesn’t for me indicate that a three-letter  word for ‘came across’ contains a three-letter word for ‘chaps’; “With chaps captivated, came across…” would be fine. Anyway, the whole lot is followed by the representation of ‘love’ already seen at 23a.

11d Don’t stop silly name being applied to saccharin (4)
I quite like this sort of clue, although I’ve found that crossword editors are generally less keen – the definition is sandwiched between two wordplays, the first being a (2,2) phrase meaning ‘”don’t stop” and the second having the usual abbreviation for ‘name’ being attached to the end of (‘applied to’) a three-letter word for sentimentality of the sickliest kind (‘saccharin’).

20d Martinets giving student hostel a going-over with head around (7)
Probably best not to analyse the wordplay too closely, but it’s clear that we need to put a reversal (‘going-over’) of a four-letter informal term for a communal sleeping-room (eg in a boarding school) inside a crossword staple that can be applied to either a headland or an Ethiopian prince (I guess context will usually indicate which meaning is intended).

22d Scottish snob unfashionable in his taste (6)
If you say “Snobs” to a group of regular Azed solvers, they will reply “Cobblers!”, and they will of course be correct. Here a three-letter word meaning ‘unfashionable’ is contained by  a Scottish (‘his’) word meaning ‘taste’ or ‘savour’, the result being one spelling of the Scots word for a cobbler.

24d Bantu woman’s one ‘eld in ‘igh esteem (6)
Why, you ask yourself, has Azed used ‘woman’ rather than “woman’s”? The answer is because the first element of the wordplay indicates a word meaning “[that] woman’s”, while the second part requires the aitch to be dropped (by analogy) from a term for someone ‘eld in very ‘igh esteem (of the sort Bonnie Tyler felt it worth ‘olding out for).

27d Lowers 50% of sail in vessel (5)
This one has &lit overtones, the last 50% of ‘sail’ being inserted into a three-letter word for a vessel, tube or duct (often with medical connotations) to produce a word which relates to the lowering of a sail.

(definitions are underlined)